LA PROMESSE DE BONHEUR

"the day was green"

The flying birds have been exhausted,
the good bow packed away;
the cunning horses have all been killed,
the good hound cooked:

now, inoutspeakable sungod,
amidst the green pines and bluish cypresses;
prince of degrees and artful twilight…and then,
sparkling morning
through the jalousies of my busy southamericancity office;

here discipline is patience in the waiting-room:
getting up at starlight, not downing tools 'till
the moon rises -
then in green light and in yellow volumes
we read rare writings together prayerfully
and thresh out the doubtful words we examine there.

Though no earthly hope remains,
no details are given of the precise troubles in our thought;
indeed I have no idea
as to the sense in which these things can properly be said
under an individual and occasional form:

for some there is mercy. There is, however,
no justice, senores, for anyone
a trigger-sound is sin
a coach door's click, one saying:
"I have a thousand," another:
"Ten thousand; I have this,
I have that." Friendliness is conducive to business success;
smiling brings blessings, gentle breezes,
sweet rains to the dear ones in the garden...

…touching the books that you mention,
there will be no need for detectives:
the way-faring men will not make fools of themselves on the highway;
the knight-errant, phantastic and useless, will always be poor without ties:

the modern town hardly knows silence or darkness, or the effect
of a solitary light
or a single distant cry.

Many telephone calls; all nature looked bleak, and still:
what would happen if we gave free rein to ill-will?

David Colledge, Santiago de Chile, October 2002